BACKGROUND
WHY?
BECAUSE
IT'S THERE.
Keeping up with the
news these days can
be a mountainous
task. But a
subscription to the
JEWISH NEWS
can increase your
knowledge — of issues
concerning our Jewish
community — and
lift your spirit.
For subscriptions
Call 354-6060
122
Friday, December 12, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
The Bechtel Corp. Not Exactly
Boycotting The State Of Israel
11111=i1111111 ■ IP
JUDITH KOHN
Special to The Jewish. News
E
ver since the passage
of the 1977 anti-
boycott law, it has
been illegal for American
companies to comply with the
Arab boycott of Israel. But if
laws are there for the imag-
inative lawyer to circumvent,
the anti-boycott law has un-
doubtedly provided work for
many a creative mind.
An illustrative case con-
cerns Bechtel, the huge
engineering and construction .
firm which has extensive
dealings in the Arab world. A
1983 memo obtained by Yale
University student Jacob
Weisberg and reported by
him in a recent issue of the
New Republic, lists Israel
among ten nations that "will
be excluded from any current
business development ac-
tivity." The stated reason:
"political sensitivities and
unstable conditions."
Asked why Israel was on
the list, a Bechtel spokesper-
son told Weisberg it had to do
with instability, rather than
"political sensitivities." In its
status as a forbidden zone for
Bechtel's commercial under-
takings, Israel thus joined
Iran and Iraq, which have
been actively at war since
1980; Lebanon, which is em-
broiled in a decade-old civil
war and virtually lacks a
government; and Afghanis-
tan, where Soviet troops have
long been battling Afghan re-
sistance fighters. Also on the
list are the Soviet Union,
Mongolia, North Korea,
North Vietnam and Cuba.
Thomas Flynn, the Bechtel
spokesperson, told Weisberg:
"I've just been reading issues
of Time and Newsweek from
the period. Relations between
the U.S. and Israel were icy
at best."
His examples included the
"violent street demonstra-
tions" in Israel protesting the
refusal of then — Premier
Menachem Begin to fire then
— Defense Minister Ariel
Sharon for his failure to pre-
vent the massacre of Palesti-
nians at the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps in
Lebanon. Also cited was what
Flynn described as "U.S.
marines going barrel to
barrel with Israeli forces" in
Lebanon.
But the spokesperson, ac-
cording to the New Republic,
called the exclusion "momen-
tary," and asserted that it
was no longer in effect.
Nevertheless, officials ap-
peared hard-pressed, Weis-
berg wrote, to name the date
on which the memo was in-
validated or to provide writ-
ten proof that the Israel ban
had been lifted.
The Bechtel case highlights
what observers suggest are
the necessary limits of the
anti-boycott law. The law
Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger: Bechtel Alums.
prohibits compliance with
foreign boycotts of U.S. allies,
but it states specifically that
the absence of a commercial
relationship does not in itself
mean a boycott. And even
William Maslow, the editor of
Boycott Report, a monthly
newsletter of the American
Jewish Congress, says
"There's some logic to that."
But it does mean that no-
body should have been sur-
prised when companies bent
on staying off the Arab
blacklist failed to turn
around and open up offices in
Tel Aviv after the law was
passed nine year ago. "If a
company decides not to do
business with Israel, they
could do it for a million rea-
sons," Maslow observed.
Consequently, even if
Bechtel still maintains the
Israel exclusion policy as
stated in the 1983 memo, it
seems unlikely that it could
ever be charged with violat-
ing the anti-boycott law.
"You need a little bit of a
smoking gun," said Jess
Hordes, associate director of
the Anti-Defamation League
of B'nai B'rith's Washington
office. "You need a situation
where they've had a business
opportunity and they've re-
fused it — that is, where
they've explicitly complied
with the boycott."
But the same observers
maintain that despite its
shortcomings, the anti-
boycott law has been rela-
tively effective. Commerce
Department officials, they
say, have cracked down on
companies for substantive
violations of the law. These
often include the signing of
documents affirming that a
company refuses to deal with
Israel, and discrimination
against Jewish job applicants.
Also common are cases
where companies fail to re-
port requests from other
firms for confirmation of
compliance with the boycott
requirements. Lateness in re-
porting receipt of these re-
quests to the Commerce De-
partment has also brought
charges of violations and, ul-
timately, heavy fines.
Another important aspect
of the boycott law is the pro-
hibition of discriminatory
conditions on letters of credit
issued by banks. But Ameri-
can banks represent only one
industry which has managed
to avoid dealing with Israel
without getting itself into
trouble with U.S. law.
No American bank. has a
branch in Israel, Hordes ob-
served. The closest thing to
There should be
no surprise that
companies bent
on staying off the
Arab blacklist
failed to open
offices in Tel Aviv
such an American-Israeli
banking relationship is the
role played by Chase Man-
hattan as fiscal agent for
Government of Israel Bonds.
Then there is, of course,
the petroleum industry. • And
even in these oil-glutted
times, when Arab states have
lost so much clout, the large
American petroleum com-
panies have hardly been
rushing to set up drilling op-
erations in the Jewish State.
Some Arab countries have
made it easier for American
firms to comply with the
anti-boycott law without vio-
lating the boycott. Saudi
Arabia, for example, no
longer requests American
companies with which it does
business to provide "negative
certification of origin," which
states that their products did
not originate in Israel. In-
stead, they are now more
commonly asked to declare
where their products origi-
nated — a request that is not
prohibited by the anti-boycott
law.
Another aid that the
Saudis have reportedly pro-
vided is a telephone service
that allows a company to find